Losing weight with Superdrug LighterLife Fast

Since January most of my readers will know about my challenge to lose weight, get fitter, re-discover myself and generally get back to feeling good about myself as for the last 5 years I had been hiding myself.

Thanks to some amazing companies I have had some brilliant support tools at my disposal to keep me on track. I’ve cut back my calories, had days where I’ve cut right back on my food intake and weeks when protein shakes have been my friends after intense difficult workouts.

I have a new love affair with food. No longer do I seek comfort in huge man-size portions, I like to cook simple, healthy meals, smaller portions and have taken time to watch my ratio of protein and fats in my meals on the days I am at the gym.

One such company that has helped me stay on track on the days when I am down to 600 calories is LighterLife Fast. They have recently introduced their range of LighterLife Fast diet foods into Superdrug and they kindly sent me two months supply to work my way through. I was sent a variety of meals and snacks to help me on my low calorie days; porridge, soups, evening meals, shakes and snack bars.

So far I’ve tried everything on the menu and I will be honest some things are better than others. The first time I made the porridge it didn’t go well and I was left with a bowl of porridge that looked like baby food. Not inspiring or appetising. I soon learnt though that the trick was to use less water and mix the porridge in a bowl adding bit by bit. Also topping the porridge with fresh fruit is a great way of sweetening it without adding lots of calorific sugar.

I haven’t been able to eat a full bowl yet as it’s too filling and quite thick but it does fill that early morning gap and keeps you full until lunchtime. One product I haven’t got on with unfortunately is the shakes. Having tried the vanilla, the chocolate and the strawberry each one is chalky, and varies from tasteless and bland (the vanilla) through to overly sweet and sickly (particularly the chocolate).

I even tried making them up in advance and putting them in the fridge to go really cold but they didn’t get any better and he consistency, even when mixed with an electric whisker is still lumpy and too thick for my liking. The soups though are delicious, the vegetable one to me was perfect for lunches in the recent bad weather and was flavoursome and very very filling. The evening meals of carbonara and bolognese just didnt cut it. Firstly the ingredients list scared me, things in here I had never heard off made me question if I even wanted to put this food into my body. The calorie content is high for a meal and given the choice I would rather make my own low calorie curry for about 350 calories than eat this. Adding the required amount of water to the meals resulted in a sloppy, tasteless mess and the spaghetti bolognese particularly was like dishwater in appearance.

The concept of a range of food that helps you on those low calorie diet days is brilliant, but for me I can quite easily come up with meals to fit a 600 calorie intake – what I did like about the LighterLife Fast range was the snack bars as it’s snacking that can be particularly hard to curb. The peanut bars are particularly delicious and I had to keep these locked in my desk at work packed with crunchy moist nuts they are my favourite by far.

The full range of LighterLife Fast products can be bought on the Superdrug website and start from £4.99 for a pack of shakes.